FRANCES WHITING

“… parenting is mostly swearing inside your own head”

You know what they don’t tell you in the plethora of parenting books out there? You know the ones with those names like Raising Cubs: The Lioness Way of Parenting or Who Moved my Jeans? Surviving the Teen Years or When You’re Not Looking.

They don’t tell you that a great deal of parenting, particularly during the teenage years, is mostly just swearing inside your own head. Either that or swearing while looking at yourself in the mirror of the bathroom you have just locked yourself in. This is a fact.

I have checked this with the many, many parents I know with offspring of varying ages, who have confirmed with me that most of their life is spent saying things like, “Sarah, please get off your phone.” At least, that is what they say out loud. What they say inside their head is “Sarah, get off your @#$@# phone.”

Other phrases they may say silently during the parenting years are “For @#$ %, Whitney, stop eating your own hair.” “No, Miss Peters, I did not pack a spare @#$* hat for the excursion,” and “Great, &*% head lice again.”

By the way, when parents look at themselves and swear in the bathroom mirror, it’s usually just the one, long, drawn out swear word, often with their hands placed on the sides of their cheeks. No one knows why, but this is particularly comforting.

Then, they splash some water on their face, pop on a smile and go once more into the breach with a, “Right, who’d like to make some chocolate chip cookies? No, Britney, I don’t have any #$# carob nibs.” Obviously that last part is the bit inside your head.

When I was a teacher in the 1980s in the East End of London, in a delightful area called Isle of Dogs, a father of a boy called Jimmy (because at that time in the East End, all the boys were called Jimmy … or Bertie, or Reggie, or Ronnie, and I am fairly sure that at least a couple of them were in homage to the Kray Brothers) said to me during our parent/ teacher chat: “I’m sorry, Miss Whiting, but doesn’t our lad just drive you @#$* mad?”

When he realised what he had said, he went bright red, and I told him not to worry about it, because we all swear sometimes and I also told him that no, his lad did not drive me mad which was a barefaced lie, because Jimmy was a #$!# nightmare, which was what I said inside my head.

Now, here’s the thing, I know swearing is ugly, and I’m not encouraging it generally, but I am saying that parenting is basically trying to grow someone into a decent human being, and that is no small thing.

So along with those titles like Potpourri Parenting, Let Them Eat Dirt and Parenting the Finnish Way, someone needs to write a book that reflects the reality of the job, rather than telling us all how to do it better.

By the way, is anyone else getting slightly annoyed at how smug Finland is about its excellent child raising methods? The Finnish are in danger of becoming the French Women of parenting.

I am tired of those books too, you know the ones – French Women Don’t Get Fat, French Women Are Sexy in their Sexy Trench Coats, French

Women Are Better Than You.

Someone needs to write Swearing in the Mirror, A Parent’s Journey.